One-Way data communication transfer systems have been available for quite some time. Typically, they are used to securely transport data from one network domain to a second network domain using a one-way network transport. The typical “network layer” protocols that are utilized for one-way secure data are either User Datagram Protocol (UDP) over Ethernet or Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a conventional one-way data communication network.
In the one-way data communication transfer system illustrated in FIG. 1, two computing platforms 101 and 102 are connected to an unsecured (source) network 107 and a secure (destination) network 113. Source network 107 can be attached to workstation 109, server 111 and computing platform 101. Further, destination network 113 can be connected to workstation 117, server 115 and computing platform 102. Computing platforms 101 and 102 can be connected via a unidirectional data link 103. The unidirectional data link 103 can be implemented to ensure that data is only transferred in one direction such that it is physically impossible to transfer data of any kind in the reverse direction.
Traditionally, unidirectional data transfer systems will convert a file from its native format into data packets in order to transfer it across a one-way network. Once the data is transmitted across the one-way network, it must be reassembled on the receiving system in order to piece the file together back into its original format (prior to writing it to the native device it was intended to go). This makes it very difficult to pass non-file-based data and limits the flexibility of these traditional one-way transfer methods. Furthermore, processing (segmentation and reassembly) of these data packets is typically performed by a network interface card. FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of conventional computing platforms 101 and 102. FIG. 2 shows that computing platform 101 has a network interface card 200 and computing platform 102 has a network interface card 210. Each of the network interface cards 200 and 210 interface with busses 208 and 218. Further, network interface card 200 includes an interface circuit/chip 204 and network interface card 210 includes an interface circuit/chip 214. The interface circuit/chip 204 and 214 process (segmentation and reassembly) data packets. Therefore, the overall system speed is lowered from the additional data overhead and additional processing employed from each of the network interface cards. Although network speeds are advancing, they are still not fast enough for certain applications and for higher volumes of data. There is currently no capability within the traditional network-based one-way transfer implementation to directly communicate cross-domain to a device on another computer.
While there are numerous vendors that have built customized fiber optic capable boards as well as utilized standard twisted-pair using media converters to achieve a unidirectional capability, these traditional methods will become obsolete as technology advances and the need for greater flexibility, higher speeds and greater capacity increases.